"She says she hates you. Joryleen says she don't give a flying f.u.c.k about you. You know what a flying f.u.c.k is, Arab?"

"I've heard the phrase." He feels his face go stiff, as if something warm is slowly coating it.

"So I don't care about you and Joryleen no more," Tylenol concludes, leaning in closer, almost as if amorous. "We laugh about you, the two of us. Especially when I f.u.c.k her. We f.u.c.k a lot, lately. A flying f.u.c.k is when you do it to yourself, like all you Arabs do. You all f.a.ggots, man."

The little audience around them laughs, and Ahmad knows from the heat on his face that he is blushing. This infuriates him to the point that when he blindly pushes through the muscular bodies toward the doors to the locker room, late now for his shower, late for his lesson, no one moves to stop him. Instead, there are whistles and hoots behind him, as if he is a white girl with pretty legs.

The mosque, the humblest of the several in New Prospect, occupies the second floor above a nail salon and a check-cashing facility, in a row of small shops that includes a dusty-windowed p.a.w.n shop, a secondhand bookstore, a shoe-repair man and sandal-maker, a Chinese laundry down a little flight of steps, a pizza joint, and a grocery store specializing in Middle Eastern foods-dried lentils and fava beans, hummus and halvah, falafel and couscous and tabouli moldering in plain printed packages that look strange, in their lack of pictures and bold lettering, to Ahmad's American eyes. For four or so blocks to the west, the so-called Arab section, begun with the Turks and Syrians who worked as tanners and dyers in the old mills, stretches along this part of Main Street, but Ahmad never ventures there; his exploration of his Islamic ident.i.ty ends at the mosque. The mosque took him in as a child of eleven; it let him be born again.

He opens a flaking green door, number 2 7 81V2, between the nail salon and the establishment, its big window masked by long blond Venetian blinds, that advertises Checks Cashed: Minimal Fee. Minimal Fee. Narrow stairs lead upward to Narrow stairs lead upward to al-masjid al-jdmi', al-masjid al-jdmi', the place of prostration. The green door and the windowless long flight of stairs frightened him the first times he came here, searching for something he had heard about in the chatter of his black cla.s.smates concerning their mosques, their preachers who "didn't take none of the man's s.h.i.t." Other boys his age became choir boys or joined the Cub Scouts. He thought he might find in this religion a trace of the handsome father who had receded at the moment his memories were beginning. His flighty mother, who never went to ma.s.s, and deplored the restraints of her own religion, humored him by driving him, those first times and afterwards, when her schedule permitted, until he was a the place of prostration. The green door and the windowless long flight of stairs frightened him the first times he came here, searching for something he had heard about in the chatter of his black cla.s.smates concerning their mosques, their preachers who "didn't take none of the man's s.h.i.t." Other boys his age became choir boys or joined the Cub Scouts. He thought he might find in this religion a trace of the handsome father who had receded at the moment his memories were beginning. His flighty mother, who never went to ma.s.s, and deplored the restraints of her own religion, humored him by driving him, those first times and afterwards, when her schedule permitted, until he was a teen-ager and relatively safe on the streets, to this mosque on the second floor. The large hall converted to worship was once a dance studio, and the imam's office has replaced the foyer where pupils in tap and ballroom dancing, accompanied by parents if they were children, waited for their lessons. The lease and conversion of the s.p.a.ce dated from the last decade of the last century, but the close air still bears, Ahmad imagines, echoes of a piano being thumped and a whiff of awkward, unholy effort. The worn, wavery boards where so many labored steps were rehea.r.s.ed are covered by large Oriental rugs, rug upon rug, which in turn show some wear.

A caretaker, a shrivelled elderly Lebanese with a bent back and lame leg, vacuums the rugs and tidies the imam's office and the children's nursery created to satisfy Western babysitting habits, but the windows, high enough to discourage spying, whether upon dancers or worshippers, are beyond the crippled caretaker's reach and semi-opaque with acc.u.mulated grime. Clouds are all that can be glimpsed through them, and these darkly. Even on Friday's saldt al-Jum'a, saldt al-Jum'a, when a sermon is preached from the when a sermon is preached from the minbar, minbar, the hall of prostration is underutilized, while the thriving modernistic mosques of Harlem and Jersey City fatten on fresh emigrants from Egypt, Jordan, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The Black Muslims of New Prospect, and the apostate adherents of the Nation of Islam, keep to their own lofts and storefront sanctuaries. Shaikh Rashid's hope of starting, in one of his third-floor s.p.a.ces, a the hall of prostration is underutilized, while the thriving modernistic mosques of Harlem and Jersey City fatten on fresh emigrants from Egypt, Jordan, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The Black Muslims of New Prospect, and the apostate adherents of the Nation of Islam, keep to their own lofts and storefront sanctuaries. Shaikh Rashid's hope of starting, in one of his third-floor s.p.a.ces, a kuttab kuttab for teaching the Qur'an to flocks of elementary-school-age children, hangs short of fulfillment. Lessons that Ahmad seven years ago began in the company of eight or so others, in age from nine to thirteen, are now carried on by him as the only pupil. He for teaching the Qur'an to flocks of elementary-school-age children, hangs short of fulfillment. Lessons that Ahmad seven years ago began in the company of eight or so others, in age from nine to thirteen, are now carried on by him as the only pupil. He is alone with the teacher, whose soft voice in any case carries best to a small audience. Ahmad is not utterly comfortable with his master, but, as the Qur'an and the Hadith enjoin, reveres him.

For seven years Ahmad has been coming twice a week, for an hour and a half, to learn the Qur'an, but he lacks opportunity in die rest of his time to use cla.s.sical Arabic. The eloquent language, al-lugha al-fusbd, al-lugha al-fusbd, still sits awkwardly in his mouth, with all its throat syllables and dotted emphatic consonants, and baffles his eyes: the cursive print, with its attendant spattering of diacritical marks, looks small to him, and to read it from right to left still entails a switch of gears in his head. As the lessons, having slowly marched through the holy text, undergo review, recapitulation, and refinement, Shaikh Rashid reveals his preference for the shorter, early Meccan suras, poetic and intense and cryptic compared with the prosy stretches in the book's first half, wherein the Prophet set about governing Medina with particularizing laws and mundane advis.e.m.e.nts. still sits awkwardly in his mouth, with all its throat syllables and dotted emphatic consonants, and baffles his eyes: the cursive print, with its attendant spattering of diacritical marks, looks small to him, and to read it from right to left still entails a switch of gears in his head. As the lessons, having slowly marched through the holy text, undergo review, recapitulation, and refinement, Shaikh Rashid reveals his preference for the shorter, early Meccan suras, poetic and intense and cryptic compared with the prosy stretches in the book's first half, wherein the Prophet set about governing Medina with particularizing laws and mundane advis.e.m.e.nts.

Today the teacher says, "Let us turn to 'The Elephant.' It is the one hundred and fifth sura." Since Shaikh Rashid doesn't wish to pollute his student's carefully acquired cla.s.sical Arabic with the sounds of a modern colloquial tongue, al-lugha al-'dmmiyya, al-lugha al-'dmmiyya, in his rapid Yemeni dialect, he conducts the lessons in a fluent but rather formal English, speaking with some distaste, his violet lips, framed in his neat beard and mustache, pursed as if to maintain an ironical remove. "Read it to me," he tells Ahmad, "with some rhythmic feeling, please." He shuts his eyes the better to listen; his lowered lids show a few purple spider veins, vivid in the waxy-white face. in his rapid Yemeni dialect, he conducts the lessons in a fluent but rather formal English, speaking with some distaste, his violet lips, framed in his neat beard and mustache, pursed as if to maintain an ironical remove. "Read it to me," he tells Ahmad, "with some rhythmic feeling, please." He shuts his eyes the better to listen; his lowered lids show a few purple spider veins, vivid in the waxy-white face.

Ahmad recites the invocatory formula "bi-smi lldhi r-rah- "bi-smi lldhi r-rah- mani r-rahim" and, tensely because of his master's demand for a feeling rhythm, tackles aloud the long first line of the sura: and, tensely because of his master's demand for a feeling rhythm, tackles aloud the long first line of the sura: "a-lam tara kayfa fa'ala rabbuka bi-asbdbi 'l-fil." "a-lam tara kayfa fa'ala rabbuka bi-asbdbi 'l-fil." His eyes still closed as he leans back against the cushions of the s.p.a.cious silver-gray high-backed wing chair in which he sits at his desk and receives his student, who perches at the corner of his desk on a Spartan chair of molded plastic such as might be found in the luncheonette of a small-city airport, the shaikh admonishes, "S, His eyes still closed as he leans back against the cushions of the s.p.a.cious silver-gray high-backed wing chair in which he sits at his desk and receives his student, who perches at the corner of his desk on a Spartan chair of molded plastic such as might be found in the luncheonette of a small-city airport, the shaikh admonishes, "S, h: h: two distinct sounds, not 'sh.' p.r.o.nounce them as in, oh, 'a.s.shole.' Forgive me; that is the sole word in the devils' language that comes to mind. On the glottal stop, don't overdo it; cla.s.sical Arabic is not some African click-language. Sweep the sound in gracefully, as though it's second nature. Which it is, of course, for native speakers, and students sufficiently diligent. Maintain the rhythm, despite difficult sounds. Stress the last syllable, the rhyming syllable. Remember the rule? Stress falls on a long vowel between two consonants, or on a consonant followed by a two distinct sounds, not 'sh.' p.r.o.nounce them as in, oh, 'a.s.shole.' Forgive me; that is the sole word in the devils' language that comes to mind. On the glottal stop, don't overdo it; cla.s.sical Arabic is not some African click-language. Sweep the sound in gracefully, as though it's second nature. Which it is, of course, for native speakers, and students sufficiently diligent. Maintain the rhythm, despite difficult sounds. Stress the last syllable, the rhyming syllable. Remember the rule? Stress falls on a long vowel between two consonants, or on a consonant followed by a short short vowel followed by vowel followed by two two consonants. Proceed, please, Ahmad." Even the master's p.r.o.nunciation of "Ahmad" has the soft knife-edge, the soulful twist, of the pharyngeal fricative. consonants. Proceed, please, Ahmad." Even the master's p.r.o.nunciation of "Ahmad" has the soft knife-edge, the soulful twist, of the pharyngeal fricative.

"-a-lam yaj'al kaydahum ft tad,lll-"

"Strengthen that Hit,' Hit,' " Shaikh Rashid says, his eyes still closed, trembling as if with a weight of jelly behind them. "You can hear it even in the Reverend Rodwell's quaint nineteenth-century translation: 'Did He not make their guile to go astray?' " His eyes half open as he explains, "The men or companions, that is, of the elephant. The sura supposedly refers to an actual event, an attack on Mecca by Abraha al-habashi, the governor, as it happens, of Yemen, the lavender land of my warrior ancestors. Armies in those " Shaikh Rashid says, his eyes still closed, trembling as if with a weight of jelly behind them. "You can hear it even in the Reverend Rodwell's quaint nineteenth-century translation: 'Did He not make their guile to go astray?' " His eyes half open as he explains, "The men or companions, that is, of the elephant. The sura supposedly refers to an actual event, an attack on Mecca by Abraha al-habashi, the governor, as it happens, of Yemen, the lavender land of my warrior ancestors. Armies in those days, of course, had to have elephants; elephants were the Sherman Ml tanks, the armored Humvees, of the time; let's hope they were equipped with thicker skins than the unfortunate Humvees supplied to Bush's brave troops in Iraq. The historical event was supposed to have occurred at about the time the Prophet was born, in 570 of the Common Era. He would have heard his relatives-not his parents, since his father died before he was born and his mother when he was six, but perhaps his grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib, and his uncle, AbuTalib-talking about this fabled battle, by the firelight of the Hashemite camps. For a time the infant was entrusted to a Bedouin nurse, and perhaps from her, it has been thought, he imbibed the heavenly purity of his Arabic."

"Sir, you say 'supposedly,' yet the sura asks in the first verse, 'Have you not seen?'-as if the Prophet and his audience have have seen it." seen it."

"In his mind's eye," the teacher sighs. "In his mind's eye, the Prophet saw many things. As to whether the attack by Abraha was historical, scholars, equally devout and equally convinced that the Qur'an was of divine inspiration, differ. Read me the last three verses, which are especially profoundly inspired. Keep your breath flowing. Favor your nasal pa.s.sages. Let me hear the desert wind."

"wa arsala alayhim tayran abdbil," Ahamad intones, trying to drop his voice into a place of gravity and beauty deeper in his throat, so he feels the holy vibration in his sinuses, "tarmihim b-hijdratin min sijjil," "tarmihim b-hijdratin min sijjil," he continues, gathering a walled-in resonance in at least his own ears, he continues, gathering a walled-in resonance in at least his own ears, "fa-ja'alahum ka-'asfin ma'kul." "fa-ja'alahum ka-'asfin ma'kul."

"Better," Shaikh Rashid indolently concedes, waving in dismissal his soft white hand, whose fingers appear sinuously long, though his body as a whole, clothed in a delicately embroidered caftan, is slight and small. Beneath it he wears the white undertrousers called the sirwdl, sirwdl, and, level on his tidy head, the white brimless lacy cap, the and, level on his tidy head, the white brimless lacy cap, the amdma, amdma, that identifies him as an imam. His black shoes, tiny and obdurate as a child's, peep out of the caftan's hem when he lifts them and rests them on the padded footstool in the same opulent fabric, containing the glints of a thousand silver threads, that covers the thronelike wing chair from which he delivers his teaching. "And what do these superb verses tell us?" that identifies him as an imam. His black shoes, tiny and obdurate as a child's, peep out of the caftan's hem when he lifts them and rests them on the padded footstool in the same opulent fabric, containing the glints of a thousand silver threads, that covers the thronelike wing chair from which he delivers his teaching. "And what do these superb verses tell us?"

"They tell us," Ahmad ventures, blushing with the shame of sullying the holy text with a clumsy paraphrase, which furthermore depends less on his sight-reading of the ancient Arabic than on a surrept.i.tious study of English translations, "they tell us that G.o.d loosed flocks of birds, hurling them against stones of baked clay, and made the men of the elephant like blades of gra.s.s that have been eaten. Devoured."

"Yes, more or less," said Shaikh Rashid. "The 'stones of baked clay,' as you put it, presumably formed a wall which then came down, under the barrage of birds, which remains somewhat mysterious to us, though presumably as clear as crystal in the graven prototype of the Qur'an that exists in Paradise. Ah, Paradise; one can hardly wait."

Ahmad's blush slowly fades, leaving on his face a crust of unease. The shaikh has closed his eyes again in reverie. When the silence stretches painfully, Ahmad asks, "Sir, are you suggesting that the version available to us, fixed by the first caliphs within twenty years of the Prophet's death, is somehow imperfect, compared with the version that is eternal?"

The teacher p.r.o.nounces, "The imperfections must lie within ourselves-in our ignorance, and in the records that the first disciples and scribes made of the Prophet's utterances. The very t.i.tle of our sura, for example, may be a mistranscription of Abraha's royal monarch, Alfilas, which a dropped ending left as al-Fll al-Fll-'the elephant.' One presumes that the flocks of birds are a metaphor for some sort of missiles hurled by catapult, or else we have the ungainly vision of winged creatures, less formidable than the Roc of The Thousand and One Nights The Thousand and One Nights but presumably more numerous, crunching their beaks upon the clay bricks, the but presumably more numerous, crunching their beaks upon the clay bricks, the bi-hijdratin. bi-hijdratin. Only in this verse, the fourth, you will notice, are there any long vowels that do not come at the end of a line. Though he spurned the t.i.tle of poet, the Prophet, especially in these early Meccan verses, achieved intricate effects. But, yes, the version handed down to us, while it would be blasphemy to call it imperfect, is, because of our mortal ignorance, in sore need of interpretation, and interpretations, in the course of fourteen centuries, differ. The exact meaning of the word Only in this verse, the fourth, you will notice, are there any long vowels that do not come at the end of a line. Though he spurned the t.i.tle of poet, the Prophet, especially in these early Meccan verses, achieved intricate effects. But, yes, the version handed down to us, while it would be blasphemy to call it imperfect, is, because of our mortal ignorance, in sore need of interpretation, and interpretations, in the course of fourteen centuries, differ. The exact meaning of the word abdbil, abdbil, for example, remains after all this time conjectural, since it occurs nowhere else. There is a term in Greek, dear Ahmad, for such a unique and therefore undeterminable word: for example, remains after all this time conjectural, since it occurs nowhere else. There is a term in Greek, dear Ahmad, for such a unique and therefore undeterminable word: hapax legomenon. hapax legomenon. In the same sura, In the same sura, sijjil sijjil is another mystery-word, though it occurs three times in the sacred book. The Prophet himself foresaw difficulties, and in the seventh verse of the third sura, 'The Imrans,' admits that some expressions are clear- is another mystery-word, though it occurs three times in the sacred book. The Prophet himself foresaw difficulties, and in the seventh verse of the third sura, 'The Imrans,' admits that some expressions are clear-muhkamdt-but others are understood only by G.o.d. These unclear pa.s.sages, the so-called mutashdbihdt, mutashdbihdt, are sought out by the enemies of the true faith, those 'with an evil inclination in their hearts,' as the Prophet expressed it, whereas the wise and faithful say, 'We believe in it; it is all from our Lord.' Am I boring you, my pet?" are sought out by the enemies of the true faith, those 'with an evil inclination in their hearts,' as the Prophet expressed it, whereas the wise and faithful say, 'We believe in it; it is all from our Lord.' Am I boring you, my pet?"

"Oh, no," Ahmad answers, truly; for as his teacher mur- murs casually on, the student feels an abyss is opening within him, a chasm of the problematical and inaccessibly ancient.

The shaikh, tilting forward in his great chair, is taking on a vehement energy of discourse, with indignant gestures of his long-fingered hands. "The atheist Western scholars in their blind wickedness allege the Sacred Book to be a shambles of fragments and forgeries slapped together in expedient haste and arranged in the most childish order possible, that of sheer bulk, the longest suras first. They claim to find endless obscurities and cruces. For example, there has been a recent, rather amusing controversy over the scholarly dicta of a German specialist in ancient Middle Eastern tongues, one Christoph Luxenberg, who maintains that many obscurities of the Qur'an disappear if the words are read not as Arabic but as Syriac h.o.m.onyms. Most notoriously, he a.s.serts that, in the magnificent suras 'Smoke' and 'The Mountain,' the words that have traditionally been read as 'virgins with large dark eyes' actually mean 'white raisins' of 'crystal clarity.' Similarly, the enchanting youths, likened to scattered pearls, cited in the sura called 'Man' should be rendered 'chilled raisins'-referring to a cooling raisin drink served with elaborate courtesy in Paradise while the d.a.m.ned drink molten metal in h.e.l.l. I fear this particular revision would make Paradise significantly less attractive for many young men. What say you to that, as a comely young man?" With an animation almost humorous, the teacher accentuates his forward tilt, resting his feet on the floor so that his black shoes flick out of sight; his lips and eyelids open in expectation.

Startled, Ahmad says, "Oh, no. I thirst for Paradise," though the abyss within him continues to widen.

"It is not merely attractive," Shaikh Rashid pursues, "some distant place pleasant to visit, like Hawaii, but something we long for, long for ardently, is it not so?"

"Yes."

"So that we are impatient with this world, so dim and dismal a shadow of the next?"

"Yes, exacdy."

"And even if the dark-eyed houris are merely white raisins, does that lessen your appet.i.te for Paradise?"

"Oh, no, sir, it does not," Ahmad answers, as these otherworldly images swirl in his head.

Where some might take these provocative moods of Shaikh Rashid to be satiric, and indeed a dangerous flirtation with h.e.l.lfire, Ahmad has always taken them to be maieutic, a teasing-forth, from his student, of necessary shadows and complications, thus enriching a shallow and starkly innocent faith. But today the rub of maieutic irony feels sharper, and the boy's stomach chafes, and he wants the lesson to end.

"Good," the teacher p.r.o.nounces, his lips snapping shut in a tight bud of flesh. "My own sense of it has always been that the houris are metaphors for a bliss beyond imagining, a bliss chaste and unending, and not literal copulation with physical women-warm, rounded, slavish women. Surely copulation as commonly experienced is the very essence of earthly transience, of vain joy. "

"But. . . ," Ahmad blurts, blushing again.

"But-?"

"But Paradise must be real, a real place."

"Of course, dear boy-what else? And yet, to continue briefly with this matter of textual perfection, even in the tamer declarations of the suras ascribed to the Prophet's Medina governance, infidel scholars claim to discover awkwardness. Could you read for me-I know, the shadows are lengthening, the spring day outside our windows is pathetically dying-read for me, please, verse fourteen from the sixty-fourth sura, 'Mutual Deceit.' "

Ahmad fumblingly finds the page in his dog-eared copy of the Qur'an, and makes his way aloud through "yd ayyuhd "yd ayyuhd 'lladhina dmanu inna min azwdjik.u.m wa awlddik.u.m 'aduw- wan lak.u.mfa 'hdharub.u.m, wa in ta'fuwa tasfabuwa taghfirii fa-inna 'lldha ghafiirun rahim."

"Good. I mean, good enough. We must work harder, of course, on your accent. Can you tell me, Ahmad, quickly, what it means?"

"Uh, it says that in your wives and children you have an enemy. Beware of them. But if you, uh, forgive and pardon and are lenient, G.o.d is forgiving and merciful."

"But your wives and children! What is 'enemy' about them? Why would they need forgiveness?"

"Well, maybe because they distract you from jihdd, from jihdd, from the struggle to become holy and closer to G.o.d." from the struggle to become holy and closer to G.o.d."

"Perfect! What a beautiful tutee you are, Ahmad! I could not have put it better myself. i ita'fu wa tasfahii wa taghfirii''- afd afd and and safaba, safaba, abstain and turn away! Do without these women of non-Heavenly flesh, this earthly baggage, these unclean hostages to fortune! Travel light, straight into Paradise! Tell me, dear Ahmad, are you afraid of entering into Paradise?" abstain and turn away! Do without these women of non-Heavenly flesh, this earthly baggage, these unclean hostages to fortune! Travel light, straight into Paradise! Tell me, dear Ahmad, are you afraid of entering into Paradise?"

"Oh, no, sir. Why would I be? I look forward to it, as do all good Muslims."

"Yes. Of course they do. We do. You gladden my heart. For next session, kindly prepare 'The Merciful' and 'The Event.' In numerical terms, suras fifty-five and fifty-six- side by side, conveniently. Oh, and Ahmad-?"

"Yes?" The spring day has pa.s.sed, beyond the upward- looking windows, into evening, an indigo sky too stained by the mercury-vapor lights of inner-city New Prospect to show more than a handful of stars. Ahmad tries to remember if his mother's hours at the hospital will permit her to be home. Otherwise, perhaps there will be a cup of yogurt in the refrigerator, or he else must risk the doubtful cleanness of the Shop-a-Sec's snack provisions.

"I trust you will not be returning to the kafir church in the center of town." The shaikh hesitates, and then speaks as if quoting a sacred text: "The unclean can appear to shine, and devils do good imitations of angels. Keep to the Straight Path-ibdind s-sirdta 'l-mustaqim. Beware of anyone, however pleasing, who distracts you from Allah's pure being." Beware of anyone, however pleasing, who distracts you from Allah's pure being."

"But the entire world," Ahmad confesses, "is such a distraction."

"It need not be. The Prophet himself was a worldly man: merchant, husband, father of daughters. Yet he became in his forties the vehicle G.o.d chose through which to deliver His final and culminating word." The cell phone that lives deep in the shaikh's overlapping garments suddenly sounds its trilling, semi-musical plea, and Ahmad seizes the moment to flee out into the evening, out into the world with its homeward rush of headlights and its sidewalk scents of frying food and of branches pale with blossoms and sticky catkins overhead.

Corny as they are, and as many times as he has partic.i.p.ated in them, commencements at Central High bring Jack Levy near to tears. They all begin with "Pomp and Circ.u.mstance" and the stately procession of seniors in their swinging black robes and perilously perched mortarboard hats, and end in die brisker, grinning, parent-greeting, highflying parade back up the aisle to the tunes of "Colonel Bogey's March" and "When die Saints Go Marchin' In." Even the most rebellious and recalcitrant student, even those with free at last spelled out in white tape on their mortarboards or a sa.s.sy sprig of paper flowers interwoven with the ta.s.sel cord, appears subdued by the terminal nature of the ceremony and the timeworn pieties of the speeches. Contribute to America, they are told. Take your places in the peaceful armies of democratic enterprise. Even as you strive to succeed, be kind to your fellow-man. Think, in spite of all the scandals of corporate malfeasance and political corruption with which the media daily dishearten and sicken us, of the common good. Real life now commences, they are informed; the Eden of public education has swung shut its garden gate. A garden, Levy reflects, of rote teaching dully ignored, of the vicious and ignorant dominating the timid and dutiful, but a garden nevertheless, a weedy patch of hopes, a rough and ill-tilled seedbed of what this nation wants itself to be. Ignore the armed cops stationed here and there in the back of the auditorium, and the metal detectors at every entrance that isn't locked and chained. Look instead at the graduating seniors, at the smiling earnestness with which they perform, to loyal applause denied to none of them, not the dullest and most delinquent, their momentary march across the stage, under the Roxyesque proscenium, between banks of flowers and potted palms, to receive their diplomas from the hand of slick Nat Jefferson, head of die New Prospect school system, while their names are chanted into the mike by the acting high-school princ.i.p.al, tiny Irene Tsoutsouras. The diversity of names is echoed by that of the footgear displayed beneath the bouncing hems of their robes as they saunter forth in tattered Nikes, or strut by on stiletto heels, or shuffle past in loose sandals.

Jack Levy begins to choke up. The docility of human beings, their basic willingness to please. Europe's Jews dressing up in their best clothes to be marched off to the death camps. The male and female students, men and women suddenly, shaking Nat Jefferson's practiced hand, something they have never done before and will never do again. The broad-shouldered black administrator, a master surfer of local political waves as voting power has shifted from white to black and now to Hispanics, refreshes his smile for each and every graduating face, showing a special graciousness, in Jack Levy's eyes, to the white students, a distinct minority here. Thank you for sticking with us, Thank you for sticking with us, his warmly prolonged handshake says. his warmly prolonged handshake says. We're going to make America /New Prospect / Central High work. We're going to make America /New Prospect / Central High work. In the middle of the seemingly endless list, Irene reads out, In the middle of the seemingly endless list, Irene reads out, "Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy. "Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy." The boy moves elegantly, tall but not ungainly, enacting his part but not overacting-too dignified to play, like some of the others, to partisans in the audience with waves and giggles. He has few partisans-spa.r.s.e handclaps spatter. Situated in a front row between two other faculty members, Levy with a furtive knuckle attacks the incipient tears tickling both sides of his nose.

The benediction is offered by a Catholic priest and, as a sop to the Muslim community, an imam. A rabbi and a Presbyterian had delivered the invocations, both of them, for Jack Levy's money, at excessive length. The imam, in a caftan and tight turban of an electrically pure whiteness, stands at the lectern and tw.a.n.gs out a twist of Arabic as if sticking a dagger into the silent audience. Then, perhaps translating, he offers up in English, "Knower of the Hidden and the Manifest! the Great! the Most High! G.o.d is the Creator of all things! He is the One! the Conquering! He sendeth down the rain from Heaven: then flow the torrents in their due measure, and the flood beareth along a swelling foam. And from the metals which are molten in the fire for the sake of ornaments or utensils, a like sc.u.m ariseth. As to the foam, it is quickly gone: and as to what is useful to man, it remaineth on the Earth. To those who graduate today, we say, rise above the foam, the sc.u.m, but dwell instead usefully upon the Eardi. To those whom the Straight Path leads into danger, we repeat the words of the Prophet: 'Say not of those who are slain on G.o.d's path they are Dead; nay, they are Living!' " Levy studies the imam-a slight, impeccable man embodying a belief system that not many years ago managed the deaths of, among others, hundreds of commuters from northern New Jersey. From the higher vantages in New Prospect, crowds gathered to see smoke pour from the two World Trade Towers and recede over Brooklyn, that clear day's only cloud. When Levy thinks of embattled Israel and of Europe's pathetically few remaining synagogues needing to be guarded by police day and night, his initial good will toward the imam dissolves: the man in his white garb sticks like a bone in the throat of the occasion. Levy doesn't mind Father Corcoran's nasally nailing the triple Lord's blessing on the lid of the long ceremony; Jews and Irish have been sharing America's cities for generations, and it was Jack's father's and grandfather's generation, not his, that had to endure the taunt of "Christ-killer."

"Well, mon, we made it," the teacher on his right says. The speaker is Adam Bronson, an emigrant from Barbados who taught business math to tenth- and eleventh-graders. "Always I thank G.o.d when the school year gets by with no killings."

"You watch too much news," Jack tells him. "We're no Columbine; tbat was Colorado-the Wild West. Central is safer now than when I was a kid here. The black gangs had zip guns, and there were no security gates or security guards. The hall monitors were supposed to be the security. They were lucky if they weren't pushed down the stairs."

"I could not at first believe when I came here," Adam tells him, in his hard-to-understand accent, music from a gentle island, a steel-drum pealing from a distance, "the policemen in the halls and cafeteria. In Barbados we shared books falling apart and used both sides of tablet paper, every sc.r.a.p, education was so precious to us. We never dreamed of mischief. Here in this grand building you need guards as if in a jail, and the students do everything destructive. I do not understand this American hatred of decent order."

"Think of it as love of freedom. Freedom is knowledge."

"My students do not believe they will ever need business math in their heads. They imagine the computer will do everything for them. They think the human mind is on eternal holiday, and from now on has nothing else to do but absorb entertainment."

The faculty falls two by two into the procession, and Adam, paired with a teacher from across the aisle, steps ahead of Levy but then turns and continues the conversation. "Jack, tell me. There is something I am embarra.s.sed to ask anyone. Who is this J-Lo? My students keep referencing him."

"Her. Singer. Actress," Jack calls ahead. "Hispanic. Very well turned out. Great a.s.s, apparently. I can't tell any more. There comes a time in life," he explains, lest the Barbadian think him curt, "when celebrities don't do for you what they used to."

The teacher he has been paired with in the recessional is, he now notices, a woman, Miss Mackenzie, twelfth-grade English, first name Caroline. Lean, square-jawed, a fitness freak, she wears her graying hair in an old-fashioned pageboy, the bangs cut level with her eyebrows. "Carrie," Jack says warmly. "What's this I hear about your a.s.signing s.e.xus s.e.xus to your seniors?" She lives with another woman up in Paramus, and Levy feels he can josh her as he would another man. to your seniors?" She lives with another woman up in Paramus, and Levy feels he can josh her as he would another man.

"Don't be dirty, Jack," she says, not giving him a smile. "It was one of his memoirs, the one with Big Sur in the t.i.tle. I had it on the optional list, n.o.body had to read it." "Yeah, but what did those that did make of it?" "Oh," her flat, incipiently hostile voice tells him, through the din and shuffle and recessional music, "they take it in stride. They've already seen it all, at home."

The entire human agglomeration of this gala event- graduates, teachers, parents, grandparents and uncles and aunts, nieces and nephews-pushes out of the auditorium into the front hall, where the athletic trophies stand watch in long cases like a dead Pharaoh's treasure, sealed in, the magical past, and out the broad front doors, thrown open to the sunshine of early June and the dusty vista of die lake of rubble, and down the great front steps, gabbing and catcalling in their triumph. Once this grand granite staircase gave onto an ample green lap of lawn and symmetrical shrubs; but the demands of the automobile nibbled and tfren slashed at this margin, widening Tilden Avenue (defiandy thus renamed by die solidly Democratic board of aldermen in the wake of the 1877 theft of die Presidency by a Republican-dominated electoral commission colluding with a South anxious to have all Northern military protection of its Negro population lifted) so that now the lowest course of granite impinges directly upon a sidewalk, a sidewalk separated from the asphalt street by a narrow strip of sod that is green only for a few weeks, before summer's baking heat and a host of heedless footsteps beat its burst of vernal growth into a flat mat of dead gra.s.s. Beyond the curb the asphalt avenue, as rumpled as a hastily made bed with its patched and repatched potholes and the tarry swales created by the constant weight of rushing cars and trucks, has been closed to traffic by orange-striped barricades for this hour, to give the graduation crowd a place to stand and bask in self-congratulation and to wait for the recent graduates to turn in their gowns within the building and make their final partings.

Milling in this crowd, in no hurry to go home and face the start of a summer in the company of his wife, and morosely feeling after his merry exchange with Carrie Mackenzie that he is missing out in an anything-goes society, Jack Levy b.u.mps into Teresa Mulloy. Freckled and flushed in the heat, she wears an already wilted orchid pinned to the rumpled jacket of a pale linen suit. He greets her gravely: "Congratulations, Ms. Mulloy."

"h.e.l.lo!" she responds, making an exclamatory occasion of it, and lightly touching his forearm, as if to re-establish die burgeoning intimacy of their last encounter. She tells him, breathlessly grabbing the first words that come to her, "You must have a wonderful summer ahead of you!"

The thought takes him aback. "Oh-same old same old," he tells her. "We don't do much. Beth has only a few weeks off from the library. I try to pick up some pin money tutoring. We have a son in New Mexico and we visit him for a week in usually August; it's hot but not muggy the way it is here. Beth has a sister in Washington, but that's even mug- gier, so she used to come up to us and we'd go for a week or so to the mountains somewhere, one side or otlier of the Delaware Water Gap. But now she's so d.a.m.n busy, always some emergency or other, that this summer . . ." Shut up, Levy. Don't talk it to death. Shut up, Levy. Don't talk it to death. Maybe it was good that the "we" slipped out, reminding this woman he has a wife. He thinks of them, actually, as being on the same continuum, with their fair skins and tendency to plumpness, but Beth twenty years farther along. "What about you? You and Ahmad." Maybe it was good that the "we" slipped out, reminding this woman he has a wife. He thinks of them, actually, as being on the same continuum, with their fair skins and tendency to plumpness, but Beth twenty years farther along. "What about you? You and Ahmad."

Her outfit is staid enough-eggsh.e.l.l-colored linen suit over a white chemise-yet colorful touches suggest a free spirit, an artist as well as a mother. Clunky turquoise rings weigh down those short-nailed, firm-fleshed hands of hers, and her arms, showing haloes of fuzz candescent in the sunlight, hold a clicking horde of gold and coral bracelets. Most surprisingly, a large silk scarf, patterned in angular abstract shapes and staring circles, is knotted beneath her chin and covers the hair of her head but for the blurred edge, witb a few stray reddish filaments, where it meets the Irish-white bulge of her brow. Watching Levy's eyes with her own, and seeing them fix on her jauntily demure head scarf, she laughs and explains, "He wanted me to wear it. He said if there was one thing he wanted for his graduation it was his mother not looking like a wh.o.r.e."

"My goodness. But, anyway, it's oddly becoming. And the orchid was his idea too?"

"Not really. The other boys do it for their mothers, and he would have been embarra.s.sed not to. He has this conformist streak."

Her face with its protuberant green eyes, pale as beach gla.s.s, seems in the scarf to look at him around a corner; its covering poses a provocation, implying a dazzling ultimate nakedness. Her head scarf speaks of submission, which stirs him. He moves closer in the press of the crowd, as if taking her under his protection. She tells him, "I spotted some other scarved mothers, Black Muslims quite dramatic in all their white, and some of the graduating daughters of the Turks-as a girl we called them 'Turks,' die dark men at the mills, but of course they all weren't. I was thinking, / bet I have the reddest hair underneath. bet I have the reddest hair underneath. The nuns would be thrilled. They said I flaunted my charms. At the time I wondered what charms were, and how you could flaunt them. They were just The nuns would be thrilled. They said I flaunted my charms. At the time I wondered what charms were, and how you could flaunt them. They were just there, there, it seemed to me. My so-called charms." it seemed to me. My so-called charms."

She shares his tendency to babble, here in this excited crowd. He says quietly, meaning it, "You were a good mom, to humor Ahmad."

Her face loses its gleam of mischief. "He's asked so little, really, over the years, and now he's leaving. He's always seemed so alone. He did this Allah thing all by himself, with no help from me. Less than help, really-I resented that he cared so much about a father who didn't do squat for him. For us. But I guess a boy needs a father, and if he doesn't have one he'll invent one. How's that for cut-rate Freud?"

Does she know she is doing this to him, making him want her? Beth would never think to bring in Freud. Freud, who encouraged a century to keep on s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g. Levy says, "Ahmad looked handsome up there, in his robe. I'm sorry I began too late to get to know your son. I feel a fondness for him, though I suspect it's not reciprocated."

"You're wrong, Jack-he appreciates your wanting to raise his sights. Maybe he'll do it himself later. For now he's barreling ahead on the trucker's license. He pa.s.sed the written exam and in two weeks takes the physical exam. For Pa.s.saic County it's over in Wayne. They need to make sure you're not color-blind and have enough peripheral vision. Ahmad has beautiful eyes, I've always thought. Inky. His father had lighter eyes, oddly, sort of gingerbread color. I say 'oddly' because you'd think Omar's would be the darker, with my pale ones in there."

"I see a shadow of your green in Ahmad's." She ignores this flirtation and goes on, "But they're not twenty-twenty. Ahmad's. More like twenty-thirty- astigmatism-but he was always too vain to wear gla.s.ses. You'd think with all this piety he wouldn't be vain, but he is. Maybe it's not vanity, it's more that he thinks Allah would give you gla.s.ses if He wanted you to wear them. He had trouble seeing the ball in baseball; that was one of die reasons he took up track as his spring sport."

This tumble of sudden specifics about a boy not too different in Jack Levy's mind from the hundreds he deals with every year, intensifies his suspicion that this woman wants to see him again. He says to her, "I guess he won't be needing those college catalogues I dropped off a month ago."

"I hope he can still find them: his room is a mess except for the corner where he prays. He should have returned them to you, Jack."

'Wo pfoblema, senor-a." pfoblema, senor-a." He notices around tJiem, in the jostling, jubilant, but already dwindling crowd, other people glancing in their direction and giving them a little room, sensing that sometliing is cooking here. He feels himself incriminated by Terry's overanimation as he tenaciously tries to match his smile to tiiat on her round, bright, freckle-starred face. He notices around tJiem, in the jostling, jubilant, but already dwindling crowd, other people glancing in their direction and giving them a little room, sensing that sometliing is cooking here. He feels himself incriminated by Terry's overanimation as he tenaciously tries to match his smile to tiiat on her round, bright, freckle-starred face.

The shadow of a big dark-hearted cloud sweeps the sunshine away and casts dullness upon the scene-the lake of rubble, the street from which traffic is barred, the bravely, brightly clad mob of parents and relatives, the civic facade of Central High School, its portals pillared and its windows barred, the height of it like the backdrop of an opera set dwarfing the singers of a duet.

"That was rude of Ahmad," his mother says, "not to return them to you at the school. Now it's too late."

"Like I said, no problem. Why don't I come by sometime and pick 'em up?" he asks. "I'll give a call ahead to make sure you're there."

As a kid, living over on Totowa Road when it was still pretty rural but for the new ranch houses, walking to school in the winter, Jack would sometimes venture out, to test his nerve, onto the ice of a marshy pond, long since built over, that he pa.s.sed on the way. The water was not deep enough to drown in-cattails and gra.s.sy hummocks betrayed its shallow depth-but if he broke through, his good leather school shoes would be soaked and muddied and maybe even ruined, and in a family whose finances were as pinched as his family's, that would have been a disaster. At the silver edge of the cloud, sunshine breaks through, scintillating on Terry's silk head scarf, and he listens with trepidation for the ice to crack.

Ill THE PHONE RINGS. Beth Levy struggles to extricate herself from her favorite chair, a rocker recliner called a La-Z-Boy, covered in a dull-brown vinyl imitating creased cowhide and equipped with a lever-operated padded leg rest, in which she has been sitting eating a plate of oatmeal-raisin cookies-low in calories compared with chocolate-chip or sandwich creams-while watching All My Children All My Children on WABC before switching channels on WABC before switching channels to As the World Turns, to As the World Turns, on at two. She has often thought of putting a longer cord into the jack so she can carry the phone over to her chair and rest it on the floor for this part of her day, the days when she doesn't go into the Clifton Library, but she never remembers to ask Jack to buy the longer cord at the telephone store, which is way off in the mall on Route 23. When she was a girl you just called AT&T and they sent a man in a gray (or was it green?) uniform and black shoes who fixed everything for a few dollars. It was a monopoly, and she knows this was a bad thing-calling long-distance, you were on at two. She has often thought of putting a longer cord into the jack so she can carry the phone over to her chair and rest it on the floor for this part of her day, the days when she doesn't go into the Clifton Library, but she never remembers to ask Jack to buy the longer cord at the telephone store, which is way off in the mall on Route 23. When she was a girl you just called AT&T and they sent a man in a gray (or was it green?) uniform and black shoes who fixed everything for a few dollars. It was a monopoly, and she knows this was a bad thing-calling long-distance, you were charged for every minute, and now she can talk to Markie or Herm for hours and it costs next to nothing-but also now there is no fixing phones. You throw them out, just like old computers and yesterday's paper.

Also, at some level she doesn't want to make her life any physically easier for herself than it already is; she needs every pitiful ounce of exercise she gets. When she was younger and married, she spent all the morning running around making beds and vacuuming and putting dishes away, but she became so expert she can do these things almost in her sleep; just sleepwalking through a room she makes the beds and tidies things up, though it's true she doesn't vacuum the way she once did-the new machines are lighter and she knows are supposed to be more efficient, but she never has the right brush for the end of the hose and finds the little storage compartment the vacuum part carries around inside itself difficult to unlatch; it's almost like a puzzle putting things together, compared with the old uprights that you just switched on and that set up vacuumed breadths on the carpet like a lawnmower on the lawn, with the sweet little light in front, like a snowplow at night. She hardly noticed any exertion, doing housework. But then she had less weight to move around-it is her cross to bear, her mortification, as religious people used to say.

A lot of her colleagues at the Clifton Library and all the young people who come in and out have cell phones right in their purses or clipped on their belts, but Jack says it's a racket, the charges add up, like on cable TV, which was something she wanted, not him. The so-called electronic revolution, to hear Jack tell it, has brought about a wealth of schemes for painlessly extracting money from us in monthly charges for services we don't need, but with cable the picture is certainly clearer-no ghosts, no wobble and twitch-and the choices are so much more there was no comparison; he himself turns on the History Channel some nights. Though he claims books are much better and deeper, he almost never finishes one through. About cell phones he actually told her, right to her face, that he doesn't want to be reached all the time, especially if he's in a tutorial-if she has a health emergency she should call 911, not him. This isn't very subtle. There's a level, she knows, at which he wouldn't mind if she were dead. It would be two hundred forty pounds less on his shoulders. On the other hand she knows he will never leave her: his Jewish sense of responsibility and a sentimental loyalty, which must be Jewish too. If you've been persecuted and reviled for two thousand years, being loyal to your loved ones is just good survival tactics.

They are are special, the Bible wasn't wrong about that. At work in the library, tJiey make all die jokes and have the ideas. Until she and Jack met at Rutgers, it was as if she had never been touched by human electricity before. The other women he had known, including his mother, must have been very clever. Very Jewish-intellectual. He thought she was funny, so relaxed and light-hearted and, though he never quite said it, naive. He told her she had grown up wrapped in the Lutheran Daddy-Bear G.o.d. He peeled back the covering on her nerves and thrust himself at her; he bore into her, all over, diinner himself then, and full of himself, a born teacher it turned out, glib, quick, thinking he might become a gag writer for Jack Benny, or was it Milton Berle at that point? special, the Bible wasn't wrong about that. At work in the library, tJiey make all die jokes and have the ideas. Until she and Jack met at Rutgers, it was as if she had never been touched by human electricity before. The other women he had known, including his mother, must have been very clever. Very Jewish-intellectual. He thought she was funny, so relaxed and light-hearted and, though he never quite said it, naive. He told her she had grown up wrapped in the Lutheran Daddy-Bear G.o.d. He peeled back the covering on her nerves and thrust himself at her; he bore into her, all over, diinner himself then, and full of himself, a born teacher it turned out, glib, quick, thinking he might become a gag writer for Jack Benny, or was it Milton Berle at that point?

Who knows where he is now, out somewhere on this impossibly sticky hot summer day when she can hardly move. She'd rather be at work, where tJiey at least have effective air-conditioning; the one tucked in their bedroom window mostly just makes noise, and he has always begrudged the electricity for one downstairs. Men, they roam, partic.i.p.ating in the society. She had always tended to be quiet, certainly next to Hermione, prattling away with her theories and ideals. Their parents drove her crazy, she said, always stodgily accepting whatever the unions and the Democrats and The Sat.u.r.day Evening Post The Sat.u.r.day Evening Post dished out, whereas Elizabeth found their stodgy pa.s.sivity comforting. She had always been drawn to quiet places, parks and cemeteries and libraries before they became noisy, some of them even with background music like restaurants, half of what people checked out were tapes and now DVDs. As a girl she had loved living on Pleasant Street, within an easy walk of Awbury Park, so much green s.p.a.ce and, a little beyond, the Arboretum off Chew, the weeping beech like a great green igloo around you and her notion of Heaven somehow caught up in the swaying tops of those tall, tall trees, the poplars showing white undersides in the slightest breeze as if there were live spirits inside, you can see how primitive people worshipped trees once. The other direction took you, by the trolley that ran on Germantown Avenue just a block away, to Fairmont Park, which was truly endless, with the Wissa-hickon flowing through, the stop at the Lutheran Theological Seminary widi its sweet old stone buildings and the seminarians so young and handsome and dedicated; you could see them on the walks, in the shade, tliere wasn't all this guitar music and women clergymen and talk about same-s.e.x marriages then. The young people in the library talk out like they're in their own living rooms, it's the same at the movies, tliere are no manners any more, television has ruined everybody's. When she and Jack fly to New Mexico dished out, whereas Elizabeth found their stodgy pa.s.sivity comforting. She had always been drawn to quiet places, parks and cemeteries and libraries before they became noisy, some of them even with background music like restaurants, half of what people checked out were tapes and now DVDs. As a girl she had loved living on Pleasant Street, within an easy walk of Awbury Park, so much green s.p.a.ce and, a little beyond, the Arboretum off Chew, the weeping beech like a great green igloo around you and her notion of Heaven somehow caught up in the swaying tops of those tall, tall trees, the poplars showing white undersides in the slightest breeze as if there were live spirits inside, you can see how primitive people worshipped trees once. The other direction took you, by the trolley that ran on Germantown Avenue just a block away, to Fairmont Park, which was truly endless, with the Wissa-hickon flowing through, the stop at the Lutheran Theological Seminary widi its sweet old stone buildings and the seminarians so young and handsome and dedicated; you could see them on the walks, in the shade, tliere wasn't all this guitar music and women clergymen and talk about same-s.e.x marriages then. The young people in the library talk out like they're in their own living rooms, it's the same at the movies, tliere are no manners any more, television has ruined everybody's. When she and Jack fly to New Mexico to visit Markie in Albuquerque, the disrespectful way the other pa.s.sengers wear shorts and what look like pajamas on the plane: television has made people at home now everywhere, not caring how they look, women absolutely as fat as she wearing shorts; they must never look in the mirror.

Working four days a week at the library, she can't watch enough of the midday serials to follow every twist of the plot, but the plots, three or four plots intertwined tiie way they do it now, move slowly enough she doesn't feel left out. It's become a habit with her lunch, to take the sandwich or the salad, or the microwaved leftovers from a few nights ago, Jack never seems to finish what's on his plate any more, and for dessert a bit of cheesecake or a few cookies, oatmeal-raisin if she's on a binge of being virtuous, and settle in the chair and let it wash over her, all the young actors and actresses, usually two or three at a time in one of those sets that look too large, with everything new-bought, to be a real room, with a stagy echo in the air, and that kind of tingling music they all use, not organ music as in die old radio serials but a synthesized, she supposes is the word, sound almost like a harp at moments and then at otJiers like a xylophone with violins, everything on tiptoe to convey suspense. The music underlines the dramatic confessional or confrontational utterances that leave the actors staring at each odier in stunned close-up, their eyeb.a.l.l.s glazed with sorrow or animosity, little bridges constantly being crossed in die endless lattice of their relationships: "I really don't give a d.a.m.n about Kendall's welfare. . . ." "Surely you knew that Ryan never wanted to have children; he was terrified of the family curse...." "My whole life seems just out of my reach. I don't know who I am or what I diink any more. . . ." "I can see it in your eyes; everybody loves a winner. ..." "You've got to love yourself enough to walk away from that man. Let your modier have him if that's what she wants-they deserve each other. . .." "I truly, deeply hate myself. . . ." "I feel lost in the desert. . . ." "I never paid for s.e.x in my life, and I'm not starting now." And dien a less angry, frightened voice, directly at die viewer: "A woman's curves can mean chafing. The makers of Monistat understand this intimate problem, and are therefore introducing a new, wholly unprecedented product."

To Betii it seems the young female actresses talk in a new way, the words curling under at die ends of sentences, back into their throats like die start of a gargle, and they seem more natural, or less unnatural and plasticky, than die young men, who look more like mere actors than the women do actresses-more like Ken, Barbie's opposite-s.e.x partner, than the girls do Barbie. When there are tbree characters on die screen it is usually two women undercutting each other over a boy-man who stands diere squirming with a frozen jaw, and if diere are four, one man is older widi beautifully grayed hair, like the Before head in commercials for Grecian Formula, and the crosscurrents in die air thicken until the swelling, eerie music rescues them momentarily by signalling that it is time for another cl.u.s.ter of "messages." Beth is fascinated to think that this is life, all this competing to the point of murder, s.e.x and jealousy and financial greed driving diem to it, these supposedly ordinary people in the typical Pennsylvania community of Pine Valley. She's from Pennsylvania and never knew a place like it. How has she missed life, so much of it? "My whole life seems just out of my reach," one character on All My Children All My Children once said, maybe Erin. Or Krystal. The remark went right dirough Beth like an arrow. Loving parents; a happy though not quite conven- once said, maybe Erin. Or Krystal. The remark went right dirough Beth like an arrow. Loving parents; a happy though not quite conven- tional marriage; a wonderful only child; intellectually interesting, physically untaxing work checking out books and looking up subjects on the Internet: the world has conspired to make her soft and overweight, insulated against the pa.s.sion and danger that crackle wherever people truly rub against one other. "Ryan, I want so much to help you, I'd do truly anything; I'd poison your mother for you if you asked." n.o.body says such things to Beth; the most extreme thing that ever happened to her was her parents' refusing to show up at her civil wedding to a Jew.

The men-boys who receive these burning vows are usually slow to answer. There is an eerie, full quality to the silence in the gap of non-conversation. Beth often fears they have forgotten their lines, but then they say the next thing, after such such a long pause. To a degree not true of evening programs-cop shows, comedies, news hours with their bantering desk of four (one male and one female newscaster, a peppy sports reporter, and, the b.u.t.t of their humor and good-natured grousing, the slightly goofy weatherman)- the daytime soap operas take place against a background of thick, teeming silence, a silence that all the erotic declarations, tense confessions, false a.s.surances, and seething animosities cannot blot out, nor can the otherworldly chiming music and the sudden intervention of the lame pop song that does for a closing theme. A terrifying silence is the ground that holds them all there, like magnets on a refrigerator door, the cast in its echoing three-sided rooms and Beth in her extra-wide armchair, vexed with herself because she did not bring quite enough oatmeal cookies on her plate and now the phone won't stop ringing so she must abandon her La-Z-Boy island of perfect padded comfort even as David, the impossibly handsome cardiologist ominously uttering a long pause. To a degree not true of evening programs-cop shows, comedies, news hours with their bantering desk of four (one male and one female newscaster, a peppy sports reporter, and, the b.u.t.t of their humor and good-natured grousing, the slightly goofy weatherman)- the daytime soap operas take place against a background of thick, teeming silence, a silence that all the erotic declarations, tense confessions, false a.s.surances, and seething animosities cannot blot out, nor can the otherworldly chiming music and the sudden intervention of the lame pop song that does for a closing theme. A terrifying silence is the ground that holds them all there, like magnets on a refrigerator door, the cast in its echoing three-sided rooms and Beth in her extra-wide armchair, vexed with herself because she did not bring quite enough oatmeal cookies on her plate and now the phone won't stop ringing so she must abandon her La-Z-Boy island of perfect padded comfort even as David, the impossibly handsome cardiologist ominously uttering charged words to Maria, the gorgeous brain surgeon whose husband, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edmund, was murdered in an earlier episode Beth unfortunately missed.

She rises in stages, first pulling the lever to lower the foot-rest and, fighting the rocker motion, transferring her feet to the floor and gripping the left arm of the chair with both hands to tug herself almost up, and finally, with an audible exclamation, heaving her weight onto her braced knees, which slowly, excruciatingly straighten, while she catches her breath. At the start of the process, she thought to place the empty plate on the chair arm safely onto the side table, but she forgot the television remote in her lap, and it falls to the floor. She sees it there, the numbered b.u.t.tons of its little rectangular panel down with the spots of coffee and spilled food that have acc.u.mulated over time on the pale-green carpet. Jack warned her that the carpet would show dirt, but pale wall-to-wall was in that year, the carpet salesman said. "It gives a cool, contemporary look," he a.s.sured her. "It expands the s.p.a.ce." Everybody knows Orientals are best for spots blending in, but when could she and Jack ever afford an Oriental? There's a place on Reagan Boulevard where you can get them secondhand at a bargain price, but she and Jack never go that way together, it's where mostly blacks shop. Anyway, used, you don't know what the previous people have spilled that's hidden in the fibers, and the idea is distasteful, like carpets in hotel rooms. Beth can't bear to think of turning her body around and bending over to pick up the remote-her sense of balance is getting worse with age-and there must be some urgent reason why the person on the phone doesn't hang up. For a while they had an answering machine attached, but there were so many crank calls from parents whose children didn't get into the colleges Jack advised that they had the machine taken out. "If I'm there, I'll cope," he said. "People aren't so d.a.m.n nasty when they get an actual voice on the other end."

Beth takes another step, leaving the people on television to stew in their own abundant juices, and totters to the table by the wall and plucks up the telephone. The new style of telephone stands upright in its cradle, and a little panel below the perforations to listen at supposedly gives you the name and number calling. It says out of area, so it's either Markie or her sister in Washington or some telemarketer calling from wherever they call from-it can be as far away as India. "h.e.l.lo?" The perforations at the other end of the receiver don't come to her mouth the way the old phones did, the hefty simple ones of honest black Bakelite that rested face-down in a cradle, and Beth tends to raise her voice because she doesn't trust it.

"Beth, it's Hermione." Herm always sounds ostentatiously brisk, busy, as if to shame her younger, indolent, self-pampered sister. "What took you so long? I was about to hang up."

"Well, I wish you had."

"That's not very nice to say."

"I'm not like you, Herm. I'm not still fast on my feet."

"Who's that talking in the background? Is somebody there?" Her words